The actress and director Núria Espert has been awarded this Tuesday with the Max de Honor 2024 for her “legacy in the performing arts and her ability as a theater manager and entrepreneur”, “a prestigious and very special award”, says the actress, because It is granted to him by his colleagues.
Núria Espert (Barcelona, 1935), Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, 2016, assures that it is a desired award. “I’m very happy. It took a while to arrive because other awards have arrived and because other wonderful actors have arrived,” she said.
The award, which is presented by the SGAE Foundation and will be collected at the gala to be held next July 1 in Tenerife, makes him especially excited because it is awarded by vote of all his professional colleagues.
At 89 years old, Espert is currently on tour with the work The island of airand “those who have gone to the theater to cry have had to throw away their handkerchief,” she comments, amused, at her change of register.
Protagonist of a classical repertoire in which he is found Yerma, Doña Rosita the single o divine words, warns that she believed herself to be “very tragic.” “My repertoire is very dramatic and yet, now, I’m doing very different work than what I’m used to,” she explains.
He feels unable to decide on one of his characters, but he does remember which ones he did not measure up to and with overwhelming sincerity he names Prospero of The Tempestone of the male characters that he has played throughout his career, as he did with The Lear King.
Far from thinking regarding getting off the stage, she receives the award while preparing a new show, a work by Wajdi Wouawad that she assures is “a very beautiful text” that already has her studying at night and that, as always when she undertakes something, It has her “terrified.”
“At first, I always have a lot of fear, a lot of insecurity, then things calm down,” he details.
And he comments with a laugh that that’s not all, since he is thinking regarding directing Cleopatra: “I’ve always wanted to do it and I haven’t been able to.”
She assures that staying in her profession for more than 60 years is due to “luck” and that she has been “very hard-working.” In these decades, in addition to acting, she has directed operas such as Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto o The Traviata; She also works with actors like Glenda Jackson, Joan Plowright and Irene Papas and has created her own theater company.
At the age of 13 he was already part of the Children’s Main Company of the Romea Theater in Barcelona; Five years later, the success of ‘Medea’ prompted her to continue a career “full of ups and downs, with peaks up and peaks down,” she describes. “I’m brave, but the brave also get slapped,” she points out.
From 1979 to 1981 he assumed the direction of the National Dramatic Center together with José Luis Gómez and Ramón Tamayo. For her, no matter how much it is said, the theater “is not in crisis”, it is a mantra that appears and disappears. “This is how it has gone through the centuries, and what remains, but we are constantly renewed,” she indicates.
She considers herself a feminist since “before the word was invented” and states that her profession is one of the most advanced in giving women their place.
Regarding the censorship that is being tried to be imposed on some shows at the initiative of Vox, he indicates that he lived through other times “of suffering and frustration”, which he shared with the majority of Spaniards. “The only thing left to do is clench your fists like this,” he says, making the gesture, “and move forward. They won’t dare, we won’t let them.”
On its shelves are the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, the National Interpretation Award, the Corral de Comedias Award; the Laurence Olivier or the Evening Standard for the best direction of the year in London, among many others, to which now it is also added, coinciding with the Max of Honor, the Royal Central School Speech and Drama.
“It is the great school of drama and now it has been my turn and it is not common; it is the place where great actors who I admire have been trained. English actors seem absolutely extraordinary to me,” he emphasizes.
For those who see in his career a reference, review that has given everything on his part, “an effort and work that has been received by the public for years and years, generation following generation.”
